This invention is directed to a drain opener, and particularly a flexible drain opener structure suited for traversing tight undersink bends for the opening thereof.
Pipe and tube cleaning implements of various types and sizes have been developed. The common equipment is divided into two types. One is a flat, metallic tape of sufficient thickness to be stiff enough to thrust endwise through a pipe. To prevent the normally sharp, flat forward end of it from hanging up in a pipe at the joints or bends thereof, a head is secured thereon. Heads of various styles and shapes have been produced. These steel, tapelike sewer rods have been unable to successfully negotiate turns and bends in smaller plumbing parts.
The more common type of sewer cleaning implement comprises a metallic wound wire springlike structure which is more flexible than the steel tape, is able to bend in any plane, and is able to rotate while bent. Therefore, the coiled wire type of pipe cleaning implement is more widely used, both in large sized equipment and in smaller size. Various types of heads have been provided for such pipe cleaning implements from an inexpensive structure which merely comprises an enlarged forward coil of the main spring wire body to more complex structures which are secured on the forward end. These more complex structures include partially spherical guides and other types of heads which act either as a guide or as a cleaning device. None of the guides is particularly designed for negotiating the sharp turns in undersink plumbing and thus have not been suitable for such use. The prior art guides jam in the pipe when a turn is to be negotiated in the pipe or jam on a corner at a pipe joint. The prior art structures have not been designed to be capable of passing through and cleaning the common undersink traps.